SEN Changes

[Canopus]

Canopus I take your point in respect to GCSE's. But I feel there are good and bad elements to them.

 

On the good side for me is that it negated an issue I faced myself at school. Even though 'O' levels were around my school only asked pupils to do CSE's my set being the first time exception. They were fed a line that a grade 1 CSE was the equivalent to an 'O' level grade C, in my experience very few in FE and HE took this fact on board. The GCSE allowed people full access in many schools which had previously been secondary moderns full access to a full range of grades.

 

You are right in what you say but the fault lay in CSEs more than O Levels. The change from CSE and O Level to GCSE has devalued the qualification in comparison to the O Level. An increasing number of independent schools are moving towards IGCSEs as they believe that employers and further education value them more than GCSEs.

 

In my opinion a better (but not perfect solution) would have been to abolish CSEs and replace them by a combined diploma in English language, maths, and science similar to CSE standard for the lower academic ability students. IT would later be included in the mix. This would then be supplemented by a small number of O Levels in subjects where the students had strengths such as history or foreign languages. Adding maths or English or science O Levels could be achieved later at college.

 

I personally agree that as an Aspie I enjoy the pressure of written exams I find them easy in comparison to my peers. What I would say however there are very few instances in my working life where I have had to be under this amount of pressure. I personally think timed coursework is the way to go for a lot of areas.

 

I am a critic of exams especially at university level as they are highly unrelated to real world careers. At GCSE level an all examination system is not perfect but in my opinion is fairer than most other alternatives. The coursework centric system makes life difficult for those who wish to take exams outside of the system such as home educated kids, distance learning course users, expelled kids, and high ability kids who wish to take them before Y11. An all examination system is much easier for them.

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Even Ofsted are critical of the standard of GCSE and A Level saying that they are failing able students.

 

It is noticable that many of the best schools now prefer a range of different qualifications (e.g. IGCSE) to the domestic ones.

 

The root of the problem is the idea of "One Size Fits All" education that has been prevelant for the past 30-40 years - it is clearly nonsense but has been driving education to an imaginary middle ground that works for no one

[Canopus]

It is noticable that many of the best schools now prefer a range of different qualifications (e.g. IGCSE) to the domestic ones.

 

I have previously stated an increasing interest in IGCSEs from within the AS community but uptake has been hindered because the NAS does not recommend them. Discussions with the NAS has revealed the reason being that it does much of its work in the mainstream school system that will not (for the foreseeable future) offer IGCSEs because they don't fit in with the NC.

 

The root of the problem is the idea of "One Size Fits All" education that has been prevelant for the past 30-40 years - it is clearly nonsense but has been driving education to an imaginary middle ground that works for no one

 

Teaching unions share much of the blame for inhibiting child focused developments along with 'lefties' in the education system who promote the one size fits all model under the banner of equality. My findings are that the political left in England generally has a poor knowledge of SEN (despite claiming to champion disability) and more so for more recent developments like ASD and sensory issues than traditional physical disabilities.